Control deck

A control deck is a term for a deck of (usually sixty) cards that aims to control the opponent's cards and progression with, ideally, the end result where one has full control of everything that is done during the game. Control decks typically get their edge through card advantage.

Aspects of control

Control decks intend to trade resources until the opponent falls behind on card quality. Due to the nature of the game engine, other decks have to play four to five times more lands than their game plan desires, which means that a quarter to a third of their deck are not useful resources after turn seven. Once the opponent's kill clock is slowed to a crawl, the control deck can refuel, which can take many varied forms depending on the format. The control deck can then develop its lead and win at its leisure.

Control decks are, unlike Aggro decks and Combo decks, defensive and reactive in nature. Because of this, Control has some major flaws in its pure state. These primary downfalls are:

1. Most answers only stop one card at a time. The last threat will still kill a control deck if unanswered, and this compounds with threats that generate value after being cast. Only the best threats ever get played, so playing a control deck means trying to manage all of them.
2. Universal answers cost more mana, so the control deck has to weigh up playing a suite of answers that either cost too much or won't hit the right targets. A control deck can only afford to trade down on mana once or twice a game before double spelling catches up to them.

Due to this, most control decks have two major things in common. A reliable form of card advantage is a major aspect of control decks, as it allows continual trading of cards and use of the high volume of lands, and an answer suite that will reliably push the game to a stalemate. One final aspect is that many control decks don't play easily-answered creatures, as rendering opposing interaction blank is an important draw to playing control - but this comes at the cost that blocking is often not an option, making even spare 1/1s dangerous.

Because control decks are defensive in nature, they often need to adopt elements of Aggro decks or Combo decks in some metagames. Some control decks use combos to win rather than the traditional few threats, but not many; if the combo is strong enough to win by itself it is typically better to put a proactive shell around it, forcing opponents to tap out and be vulnerable. Otherwise, if the combo-kill is the best thing the control deck can use, it typically signifies that a metagame is unbalanced - aggressive decks will need to include disruption to defend against the combo, which weakens consistency and draws out into the late game that control is favored in. When a Control deck adopts some aggro elements, they usually use efficient creatures or spells that gain tempo early in the game. Most Control decks that need to adopt certain elements of combo or aggro decks are forced to do so in certain metagames where standard resource trading is unprofitable. Thus, the common long-term plan of winning with Control becomes too elaborate and ineffective early on.

Some examples

Blue-x Control

The classic control deck, blue/x control utilizes Counterspell and its like to counter threats while increasing its land base in order to use its own limited number of threats. It also has the largest suite of raw card drawing. While pure U (MUC) decks are rare due to the lack of true battlefield removal, UW and UB control are almost always present in standard formats, White offering board sweepers like Wrath of God and stall cards like Moat, Humility, and more recently Timely Reinforcements, and Black offering more efficient creature removal like Doom Blade and discard/disruption in the form of cards like Duress. Red's contribution is often through even more efficient burn spells and damage sweepers alongside spell-based synergies.

Land Destruction / Land Lock

There are two basic types of cards in Magic: lands, and spells. Land destruction decks focus on depriving the opponent of this critical resource. It hits lower on the food chain than Counterspell decks, and is thus easier to play; without lands, after all, your opponent can't cast anything, rendering counterspells unnecessary. Classic cards include Sinkhole, Armageddon, and Strip Mine. Small-creature decks, particularly White Weenie, are designed to be most effective in the early parts of the game, and therefore can run successfully on only a few lands and are thus less threatened. Land destruction has not been particularly viable as of late, as a consequence of Wizards of the Coast's conscious decision to keep the archetype from being viable, since their market research shows most players don't enjoy playing against it.

Mono Black

Black uses its discard effects like Duress or Thoughtseize to prevent troublesome cards from ever entering play. It also kills creatures very efficiently and can access large amounts of mana with cards such as Cabal Coffers, making its second-rate card advantage options more palatable. However, mono-black has problems dealing with artifacts and enchantments and thus requires expensive colorless removal such as Oblivion Stone to handle them.

Prison

A prison deck is a style of control deck that attempts to establish a "lock" which prevents the opponent from interacting at all, such as preventing them from drawing useful cards, countering every spell, or not letting an opponent untap. For example, Jace, the Mind Sculptor alone can be a temporary lock with his first ability, at least long enough to activate the ultimate and seal the game.

Other popular locks include Counterbalance with Sensei's Divining Top to alter the top of the library as required. One of the oldest and then more popular prison decks at the time created a lockdown on the board between Stasis and Kismet. Turbo Stasis would attempt to continually draw Islands or temporarily sacrifice a Stasis to Despotic Scepter to untap all of the own permanents, only to play another during the turn. Another Stasis lock would use Chronatog to skip all own turns, thus also preventing Stasis from leaving play, and have the opponent draw until he can draw no more and die.

See also

• Archetypes
• Aggro deck
• Combo deck
• Aggro-control deck
• Permission

External links

• Quinn Murhpy (January 31, 2017). "How to Build Control". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Melissa DeTora (October 6, 2017). "Philosophy of Control". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.